Tom Delay (Chief Executive, The Carbon Trust)
Tom was appointed as the first Chief Executive of the Carbon Trust in 2001. A Chartered Engineer with extensive experience of the energy sector, Tom worked for Shell for 16 years in a variety of commercial and operations roles including four years as General Manager of Pizo Shell – a Shell subsidiary in Gabon, Africa. He moved into management consultancy with McKinsey and Co. and then as a Principal with the Global Energy Practice of A.T. Kearney before joining the Carbon Trust. Tom gained a first class honours degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Southampton in 1981 and completed an MBA at INSEAD, Paris in 1988.
Professor Chris Rapley CBE (Director, Science Museum)
Professor Chris Rapley CBE is Director of the Science Museum. This follows a decade as Director of the British Antarctic Survey, and four years as Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Prior to that, Chris spent an extended period as Professor of Remote Sensing Science at University College London. He has a first degree in Physics from Oxford, an M.Sc. in Radioastronomy from Manchester University, a Ph.D. in X-ray astronomy from University College London, and has recently been awarded an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Bristol. He and a US colleague were the driving force behind the International Polar Year 2007–2008. He is a Fellow of St Edmund’s College Cambridge, a Fellow of University College London, and an Honorary Professor at the University of East Anglia. His interests are in climate change and earth system science, as well as a more general interest in the organisation, leadership and communication of science. Chris was awarded the 2008 Edinburgh Science Medal for having made ‘a significant contribution to the understanding and wellbeing of humanity’.
Sara Parkin OBE (Founder Director, Forum for the Future)
Sara Parkin is a Founder Director and Trustee of Forum for the Future, the leading UK sustainable development charity. She works across a range of issues, with a main focus on integrating sustainability into post-school education, engineering and other professions. She designed the pioneering Forum Leadership for Sustainable Development Masters. She also sits on the boards the Natural Environment Research Council, the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education and Head Teachers into Industry, and from 2000–2006 was a board member of the Environment Agency for
England and Wales. She is a Companion of the Institution of Civil Engineering and the Institute of Energy.
Formerly a Ward Sister in Edinburgh, Sara Parkin contributed to the development of Green Parties world wide, playing various roles that include leading the UK Green Party and the European Greens during the 1970s and 1980s. She is a Trustee of the St. Andrews Prize and Advisor to the Population and Sustainability Network. In the past she has served on the boards of Friends of the Earth (UK), New Economics Foundation and Groundwork. In 2001 she was awarded an OBE for services to education and sustainable development.
Harry Rich (Chief Executive, Enterprise Insight)
Harry Rich is Chief Executive of Enterprise Insight the organisation that runs Make Your Mark, the campaign to unlock the UK’s enterprise potential.
Harry was previously Deputy Chief Executive at the Design Council, having joined in 1999 after a business career in industrial distribution, retailing and publishing. He led on services to drive economic and business growth through design and creativity and on policy, government relations, research and design knowledge. He has been a keynote speaker at business conferences around the world.
Harry serves on the Press Complaint Commission’s Charter Compliance Panel and on the advisory board of the US-based Design Management Institute and is governor of the University of the Creative Arts. He was a non-executive director of the Advertising Standards Authority, Chair of JAT – the Jewish sexual health charity, a Justice of the Peace and has practised as a commercial lawyer.
Karen Lawrence (Head of National, Regional and Community Delivery, Energy Saving Trust)
Karen has a BSc (Hons – first class) in European Management Science and French and is a fully qualified member the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, the Institute of Logistics and Transport and a Fellow of the RSA.
Karen started her career in procurement and category management for Shell UK Retail. From Shell Karen moved to Kingfisher PLC where she worked in key roles within the Commercial department and finally leading a strategic project on price positioning.
Her early years at the Energy Saving Trust were spent developing and piloting the new Energy Saving Trust Advice Centres, expanding their remit to cover microgeneration and transport advice as well as energy efficiency. As Head of National, Regional and Community Delivery, her remit covers the Trust’s decentralised activities in Wales, Northern Ireland and the English Regions via the newly established regional structure. Karen is also responsible for all of the Trust’s activities in relation to communities and Local Authorities.
Professor Nigel Peter Brandon FREng (Shell Chair Sustainable Development in Energy, Imperial College London)
Professor Nigel Brandon holds engineering degrees from Imperial College London. He spent the first fourteen years of his career in R&D roles with BP and Rolls-Royce, before returning to Imperial as a member of staff in 1998. In 2004 he was appointed to the Shell Chair in Sustainable Development in Energy, and in 2006 as Senior Research Fellow to the Research Councils Energy programme, and Director of the Imperial College Energy Futures Lab. He is a founder and now Chief Scientist of Ceres Power, an AIM listed fuel cell development company spun out from Imperial College in 2001. He was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal in 2007 for his contribution to engineering leading to commercial exploitation.
Alex Reynolds (Education Advisor, CABE)
Alex Reynolds is Education Advisor at CABE. His background is in teaching and he took part in the inaugural year of the TeachFirst programme in 2003. After two years teaching Geography at the West London Academy, he moved to Portugal to be Head of Humanities at the Oporto British School where he later became Director of Studies. At CABE he developed and manages Green Day, an activity day about climate change for schools which involved 30,000 students last June. He is also developing
resources to support the schools going through the Building Schools for the Future programme and writes regularly for 360 magazine.
Charlotte Morton (Founder, WhizzGo)
Professor Erik Bichard (Regeneration and Sustainable Development, University of Salford School of the Built Environment)
Erik Bichard is Professor of Regeneration and Sustainable Development at the University of Salford’s School of the Built Environment. He has spent his entire career working on sustainability issues and has degrees in environmental sciences, noise control and land use planning disciplines. He was Cheshire County Council's first 'Environmental Planner' and went on work as a sustainability consultant for Entec and ERM. Later he was appointed Chief Executive of Sustainability Northwest and the National Centre for Businesses & Sustainability.
Erik is a non-Executive Director of Greater Manchester Waste Ltd, FRC Group and Migrant Workers North West. His recent book, ‘Positively Responsible’, written with the psychologist Cary Cooper, addresses the way in which human behavior for sustainable change can be influenced and accelerated.
Steve Turner (Head of Carbon Economy, AGMA’s Economic Commission)
Steve Turner is Head of Carbon Economy at AGMA’s (Association of Greater Manchester Authorities) Economic Commission. In this role he leads climate change work across the Manchester city region.
Currently, his work covers both strategic and operational issues that relate to climate change. This includes that relating to critical infrastructure (energy supply and demand), spatial planning, skills and training, innovation and enterprise. He is also responsible for establishing the Manchester Climate Change Agency and taking forward work resulting from Manchester’s Mini-Stern Work.
Previously, he has held a number of key positions in both the private and public sector. He has undertaken a number of strategic economic appraisals for a range of government agencies, including those on the Liverpool Waterfront and Millennium Communities for English Partnerships He has also contributed to a number of regional environmental economy studies including those in the north west, west midlands and yorkshire humber and undertook a review of the Government’s Urban White Paper. He led sustainable development work for a number of years in the London Borough of Southwark, including that on major regeneration schemes in Bankside, Peckham and the Elephant and Castle.
Kate Radford (Climate Change Programme Manager, Cheshire & Warrington Economic Alliance)
Kate Radford is the Climate Change Programme Manager at Cheshire & Warrington Economic Alliance (CWEA), a sub-regional organisation in the North West that brings together leaders and influencers from both the public and private sector to work in partnership on a wide range of economic development issues. Kate’s role includes coordinating sub-regional climate change activity, managing funding and working with stakeholders on projects to support delivery of the Northwest Climate Change Action Plan and build capacity in the sub-region.
Before moving North in 2008 Kate worked in the Environment Team at the London Development Agency commissioning and delivering a programme that supported economic generation through recycling and waste projects. Kate also sat on the Senior Management Team for London Remade, a recycling market development company, managing their Local Authority Support Programme which assists London Boroughs with their recycling schemes. Prior to this Kate worked for a Hounslow Council managing the recycling team which gained Beacon status for recycling achievements.
Jim O’Connor (Manager of Enquiry Services, Scottish Enterprise)
Jim has been in the Enterprise network for over 9 years, firstly as manager of the Business Gateway in Glasgow and since April 2007 manager of the Enquiry services for Scottish Enterprise.
Jim had an early career in Hotel management in the UK, South Africa, Belgium and Holland. His later career included company directorships in Benelux fast food markets. Jim was also successful MBO of a chain of Pizza restaurants, based in the Benelux and subsequently disposed of property assets. Also, he was CEO of a subsidiary company of an English premier league football club. When based in the Middle East, Jim developed a franchise operation for a traditional Lebanese Nut & Coffee roasting company.
Jenny Hamilton (Climate Change, Senior Policy Adviser, Scottish Government)
Jenny Hamilton is a Senior Policy Adviser on climate change within the Scottish Government. She provides oversight to a number of priority work areas designed to deliver the Government’s ambitions to show leadership in tackling climate change. This includes the Scottish Climate Change Bill, work to identify pathways to a low carbon economy in 2050, a framework to help Scotland adapt to the impacts of climate change, and the development of new tools for carbon assessment of Government spend and policies.
Jenny joined the Scottish Government in 2002. Prior to that, she worked as an environmental consultant in London for around 7 years, where she focused on policy analysis and sustainability issues, mainly for public sector clients in the UK, Ireland and Europe. She has an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College and an undergraduate degree in economics and business law.
Professor Patrick Corbett (Head of Energy Academy, Heriot-Watt University)
As Head of the Energy Academy within Heriot-Watt University, Patrick is responsible for growing and strengthening the institutional academic base across all areas of energy. He was previously Head of Institute of Petroleum Engineering at Heriot-Watt and sits on the pan-Scottish University Energy Technology Partnership board.
He is the Total Professor of Petroleum Geoengineering and has published widely in petroleum geoscience and engineering and also on the links between the petroleum and renewables industries. He is currently involved in Carbon Capture and Storage research activity through the Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage.
Maf Smith (Director, Sustainable Development Commission Scotland)